Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Carl Goodman

LL.M Course 254 (cross-listed) | 2 credit hours

This course provides a comparison of aspects of the Japanese and US legal systems with the objectives of (a) providing some insight into the Japanese system, (b) demonstrating how legal concepts taken from an established legal system are "reinterpreted" when imported into a different legal system based on a different culture and history and (c) providing a basic understanding of selected Japanese legal topics. Among the substantive law areas which will be compared (after a survey of historical and societal foundations which affect the Japanese and US legal systems) are various aspects of Constitutional Law including Separation of Powers, the Legal System and the Japanese Constitutional provision Renouncing War; the differing views of dispute resolution including Litigation, mediation and other Alternative Dispute Resolution devises and their role in the legal systems of Japan and the US; discussion of the New (1998) Code of Civil Procedure and its potential effects on the future of litigation in Japan; the changing environment of the study and practice of law in Japan, including the 2001 recommendations of the Council on Judicial Reform; Equality and concepts of equal treatment opportunity; Criminal Law and Administrative Law.